‘The individual with the bomb dog falsely reported explosives being found and that individual is currently being detained by police,’ police say.
Police on New York’s Long Island on Sept. 18 disputed claims that explosives were found at Nassau Coliseum ahead of an event with former President Donald Trump, just days after the former president was the target of a second apparent assassination attempt in Florida.
A statement released by the Nassau County Police Department’s commissioner, Patrick Ryder, said that earlier reports of explosives being detected “are unfounded” and that an individual is being questioned “who may have been training a bomb detection dog near the site.”
“The individual with the bomb dog falsely reported explosives being found and that individual is currently being detained by police,” Ryder said in the statement, which was posted on the Nassau County Police Department’s account on social media platform X.
An earlier statement issued on X by the department on Sept. 18 said that reports of a bomb near the venue are false.
Further details about the incident or the report were not provided.
Earlier in the day, claims about explosives had been circulating on social media. It’s not clear where they originated, although an individual on X claimed in a post that “sources” in the police department allegedly told him that “the perimeter was breached and a blue barrel was removed.”
Federal law enforcement officials have been on heightened alert following the second apparent attempted assassination of Trump, who is scheduled to speak at Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, New York, on Wednesday evening, according to his campaign.
Video footage shot by local media outlets showed that people clad in Trump-themed clothing were waiting in a lengthy line outside the Nassau Coliseum on Wednesday morning.
The rally marks Trump’s second public appearance since the apparent assassination attempt, which occurred while the former president was playing golf at his course in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Sunday. A suspect in the incident, Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, of Hawaii, has since been arrested.
Routh currently faces charges of possessing a firearm as a felon and possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number, both felony counts. The FBI has called the incident an assassination attempt on Trump, meaning that Routh will likely face additional charges in the case.
The U.S. Secret Service’s acting director, Ronald Rowe, said that Routh never had a clear line of sight to Trump, never fired a shot at the former president, and that an agent discovered Routh’s SKS-style rifle sticking through the golf course’s fenced perimeter before the agent fired at him. Routh fled the scene after the Secret Service encounter and was detained less than an hour later by sheriff’s deputies.
The FBI, meanwhile, said that during an interview with Routh, he made no comments and requested a lawyer.
Two months earlier, Trump survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, when a gunman fired at him as he was speaking. A bullet fired by the suspect, Thomas Matthew Crooks, struck Trump in the right ear, narrowly missing his skull. Crooks was shot and killed by a Secret Service countersniper team shortly after.
The Epoch Times has contacted the Nassau County Police Department and the county’s sheriff’s office for comment.
This is a developing news story and will be updated when more details emerge.